NFL practice fights are usually fun, meaningless

Ooh, reports of a practice fight are so juicy. The second they roll in, you want to know the details. Who was fighting? What set it off? Do they have a deep-seated hate of each other?

But it’s rarely as dramatic as you want it to be.

At Seattle’s minicamp practice on Wednesday, Richard Sherman and Phil Bates got into a skirmish. Sherman was covering Bates, and when things got physical, the two didn’t stop when the play did. The whole team got involved, and eventually the two were pulled apart.

A fight broke out in the Ravens’ minicamp, too. Steve Smith — of course — and Lardarius Webb got into a shoving match. It was the second fight of the day, as two rookies got into it earlier in the day.

Fights like these — especially when they involve big names like Sherman and Smith — are fun to read about. It’s exciting to watch the videos and see who hit whom. It’s interesting to see how quickly the fights are broken up, and how rare a landed punch is.

But in reality, they mean nothing. It doesn’t mean that one player is tougher than another. It doesn’t mean that there is a huge divide in the team’s ranks.

It means that two men who were competing with each other let things go a bit too far.

Seattle’s Earl Thomas downplayed the fight after practice.

“We’re all so competitive if you press one wrong button, everybody will clear the benches,” Thomas said.

So enjoy the drama in those practice fights. Read all you can. Check out the pictures. Just don’t try to attach meaning to the skirmishes.